1. Technical Field
The present invention relates to a light-emitting element.
2. Related Art
Optical writing heads of optical printers or the like employ self-scanning-type light-emitting element arrays. Such a self-scanning-type light-emitting element array includes a plurality of elements, which emit light sequentially. Each element includes: a light-emitting thyristor of pnpn structure serving as a light-emitting element; and a shift thyristor for sequentially shifting supply of electric power to each light-emitting thyristor.
Here, for each light-emitting thyristor, when the corresponding shift thyristor becomes ON, the gate voltage increases so that the light-emitting thyristor becomes to an ON-ready state. On the other hand, when the adjacent shift thyristor becomes ON, the light-emitting thyristor having already been ON need be turned OFF. For the purpose of this, a gate load resistor is necessary that maintains the gate voltage at the high voltage when the shift thyristor is ON and that allows a current to flow to the power supply in order to rapidly reduce the gate voltage of the light-emitting thyristor when the shift thyristor becomes OFF.